Many of the village children, especially the females, accompanied their mothers in the routine. They played or helped according to the disposition of the parent, while the women talked in melodious voices that reminded Auron of bird chatter at dawn. One potbellied child in a smock wandered across the beach, ignoring the occasional brayed voice of her parent. A long-haired boy sat on the footbridge, dangling a line in the stream. He kept her from crossing the bridge, and the girl went to the wet sand at the water’s edge and began to make hills, decorating them with washed-up shells.

Auron slipped into the water, coloring himself like the sea bottom, and he drifted toward the beach with gentle movements. A flying pelican dipped low to take a look, and thought better of it.

The boy perhaps saw his back appear among waves, for he shouted. At the noise, Auron shot out of the surf and had the child in his jaws before she even could turn to see what was coming at her out of the ocean. He whipped his head back and forth, breaking her neck and silencing the brief scream.

At the stream, women forgot their laundry and snatched up their children. Auron raised his head, limp child in his jaws, and looked at the stick-thin boy. The boy dropped his pole and took up a stone from the foundation at the edge of the footbridge.

Brave, but too late, Auron thought. He returned to the surf. Out of rock-throwing range from the shore, he came up again and rolled over on his back to eat, bobbing in the easy swell.

An alarm rang among the buildings. The humans acted with the typical energy of their species. Narrow boats put out from shore as they lit a smoky bonfire on the beach. Auron poked his head up, part of his kill yet unswallowed, and saw the faraway fishing boats abandoning their half-empty nets. His head gave the narrow boats a mark, and they plied their oars toward him.

He floated, finished his meal, and decided he had time to wait for a belch to come up. An arrow or two whistled from the thin boats, but they fell short. Auron rolled over and began to swim out to sea, keeping underwater as much as possible.

The fishermen were more skilled than the men in the narrow boats. Every time he came up for air, they adjusted course. The oar boats put up sails, but by swimming west straight into the wind, Auron stayed well ahead of them. The fishermen came at him in two pairs of two boats, smaller nets strung ready and men hanging on to the bows with iron spears in their hands.

Auron could see the nets coming in time to avoid them easily. As he breached again behind the fishing boats, a barbed spear plunged into the water beside him. Men in the stern stood ready, as well.

The spear had a line attached, and Auron grabbed it in his mouth. He pulled, and the men at the other end pulled back, stronger than he could. He kept up the fight until he knew the boats were gathering, then came to the surface and drew breath, released the line and dived. He swam as fast as he could out to sea, and when he came up again, the boats took up the futile chase one more time.

Auron conserved his energy. One of the fishing boats turned back, but the other three, and the narrow boats, came on in a straggling line behind him, each making its best speed into the wind. Auron did not know much of men, but he admired the way these used their ships like hunting horses. Their boats, nets, spears, and the determination behind their inventions impressed him. No wonder enough men like these, working together, could kill even a great dragon like his grandsire.

Now he had to complete his plan in such a way that would take advantage of their deadly tenacity. Yet not allow them a good shot at him.

Auron reached the chain of islands. As he came to shore, he saw the men had anticipated this chance. Barking dogs and clusters of men were already setting out in little boats from the larger fishing vessels. The narrow boats had taken down their sails, and they knifed through the water under a spray of oar power. Grim-faced captains stood in the bows, spears pointed at him as they directed the oarsmen.

Auron would not run just yet. He turned and faced the hunters, and let out such a bellow as would have put all the bats by the egg shelf to flight, were he still in the cave with Mother. It was no dragon roar, but it was no hatchling peep either. Let them come with their dogs! Land or sea, he had the room and energy to run.

He just hoped they didn’t get too good a look at him.

Auron ran for the trees, thick on this side of the little island, a hummock of rock-strewn land, perhaps the tips of some lost mountains swallowed by the sea. Auron disappeared among the rocks, but not before he saw one of the fishing craft racing around the point to the other side of the island, in case he took to the water again. The men thought ahead!

“What-what?” the slate-colored drake brayed from the ridge of the island. His head stood above grasses, and he saw Auron putting the rocks between himself and the beach. Shrieking birds circled above him—he must have been among their nests. “Back again-again? Ye shan’t live this day, intruder-intruder!” The slate drake advanced through the tangle of vegetation holding the shifting sand in place.

Auron looked at the murder burning in the drake’s eyes. He heard a dog bark. “I think not-not,” Auron said, and dived into the boulders. He fanned his tail along behind to cover his tracks in the sand.

Auron could not see the spearmen coming through the rocks behind their dogs, the fishermen with their harpoons, or the determined captains of the seacoast people among them signaling and giving orders. But the drake did. Auron read confusion in his enemy’s mind as the wingless drake shifted his gaze to the noise of the approaching hunters and froze. Confusion became realization; realization gave way to panic. The drake turned and ran for the trees. The men pointed, released their dogs, and sounded wailing horns as they followed.

Chapter 9

After weeks of gorging on an ample sea diet, Auron burst his chest collar by flexing his back muscles until the pin holding it closed gave way. The one on his neck proved more troublesome. Though he could twist his head enough to chew at it, the iron hoop proved invulnerable at clasp and joint. Even with his rear claws under it, he could not break the thing, at least not before his neck gave way, or so he felt as he strained. In the end, he decided to live with it until such time as he grew strength enough to break it, hopefully before his neck thickened enough that it would choke him. This was not as far-off a worry as it might seem. His neck had already grown to the point where the collar no longer rested at his shoulders.

Other than that nagging doubt, Auron enjoyed his time on the island chain. He discovered the joys of lobster and crab hunting, oyster prying and clam digging. He watched pelicans fish by swooping low over the water, folding their wings and striking when they spotted the scaly flash of their prey. The odd-looking birds could then scoop up the stunned fish. Auron imitated them by clinging to a reef offshore, and when he saw a fish, he would belly-flop into the water. It didn’t work every time, but he caught enough fish to keep his appetite at bay in only a morning’s effort.

He learned to speak with the seagulls and terns, though their simple discourse bored him unless he wanted to know the state of the tide or what the weather would be like the next day or where the fish were reputed to be running.

He swam and explored some of the other islands in the chain. Most were little more than grassy sandbars. Because there was wood on his, the men returned to it at times to build fires on the beach and smoke their catch. Boys from the inlet settlement learning their fathers’ skills never failed to explore the lair of the late and unlamented drake: a cave dug into a rockpile. They raked over the sand for dropped dragon scales, and pointed to the place where two dogs and a man had died while killing the drake. Auron watched their visits and those of the fishermen from the sand, his body speckled over and striped with sea-oat shadows, doing his best to pick up their words.

Most days it rained as spring warmed and grew into summer. For the first time in his life, Auron had all he could eat. When sated, he sat atop rocks if the sun shone, and measured his growth by watching the collar in its progress up his neck. He swam among the islands in nervous bursts of energy. He felt the beginnings of the wanderlust that Mother told him drove young dragons many horizons from their birthplaces. But the hungry hatchling part of his brain still argued for staying among the islands where food was plentiful and dangers few.

The only real conversation with anyone he had was after a storm, when a mighty rounded beast was washed to shore. It was armored like a dwarf, and had a beak on it like a bird. Auron saw it resting on the sand, as it pushed its bulk back from the grasses to the sea.

“What are you, a sea dragon?” Auron asked, circling the creature’s bulk. Deep down, he thought it couldn’t be a dragon, but he didn’t want to offend it if it was some strange offshoot.

“Waat dat?” The creature understood his speech, though he returned it with a thick accent.

“Sea dragon. You. What are you?”

“I’m de greaat sea tuurtle. Kippeesh, my naame. You sum overrsize iguuana?”

“I’m a dragon. A young one, no wings or fire yet.”

“Draagon. Oh, yees, I know of dem. Long ago, dey say, draagons rule de world. Before demen came.”

“Demen?”

“De’ men. Demen, dey go in sheeps, of wood and net.” The sea turtle pushed himself a little farther along the sand, building a wave of it in front of him, as if he were some great vessel traveling through the water. “De’ world theirs now.”